February 09, 2010 |

When you’re giving it all you have game in and game out and are only 2-21 and 1-9 in your conference how do you stay motivated?

Until this game UMBC was playing competitive ball, and even if they were losing by a big margin they were still hustling and giving it their all, but against Maine the team came out of the locker room completely flat and never seemed to get anything going on either side of the court.

Just eight days ago UMBC pulled of an improbable and beat the first place Maine team on their home court, 56-55. But UMBC would have no such luck this time out and Maine got their revenge as they outplayed the Retrievers for 40 minutes, having UMBC their 22nd loss of the season, 84-63.

By the looks of the first minute one would have thought UMBC may have been on the road to another upset victory over Maine as they made both of their shots and drew a charge on Maine to jump out to a 4-0 lead. But there were stil 39 minutes of basketball left.

Maine made a quick turn around and went on a 12-0 run in just four minutes, and the game quickly got out of hand from there.

With 9:37 left Maine jumped out to a double-digit lead, and five minutes later they kept a double-digit lead for good. They went into the half leading by 13 points and with 5:58 remaining in the game they built up to a 38 point advantage.

After that moment Maine coach Ted Woodward called his rotation players to the bench and gave five rarely used players some time. UMBC managed to outscore that unit by 17 points but it was too little too late as the Retrievers lost by 21 points.

While the UMBC offense struggled to get much going in the game, the defense had no answers for the Maine offense which shot 53.3% from the field.

Sophomore guard Gerald McLemore tied a career high making seven three-pointers in a game high 25 point outing. Sean McNally (14 points), Murphy Burnatowski (11), and Junior Bernal (11) also proved to be too much for the UMBC defense.

This season UMBC’s other problem aside from defense has been rebounding and this game was no exception. UMBC was out-rebounded 47-20 and they only managed five offensive boards in the game.

The offense managed to pick up a fair amount of points in dead time when the Maine reserves were in which made the 63 point effort look fair, but before that moment UMBC only managed 38 points.

The team’s lone senior, Matt Spadafora, led the team with 14 points while sophomores guard Chris De La Rosa and Chauncey Gilliam each had 10. De La Rosa also came up just one assist shy of a double-double.

While Gilliam scored in double-digits in his eight straight game, he has been in a terrible shooting slump which hit a low in the game as he was just 1-of-7 from the field. His lone field goal came with under one minute remaining on a fast break steal he created.

In the last three games he is just 6-of-25 from the field but has made the most of his free throw opportunities, going 25-of-28 in that span.